John Garamendi: “So what Goldman Sachs was doing was essentially a very dishonest, disreputable, and quite possibly fraudulent scheme to…”

“So what Goldman Sachs was doing was essentially a very dishonest, disreputable, and quite possibly fraudulent scheme to rip off some investors somewhere. They may have been sophisticated, they may not have. But they were told that this was not a B-rated product but rather an A-rated product because Standard and Poor's, perhaps playing a game, and part of the game with Goldman, had reevaluated that particular tranche, that package of mortgages, and said now they are an A because we've taken a look at the FICO score of some of the underlying mortgage people who had taken out the loan. So from the whole thing, where is the honesty in the business? Where is the element of good faith to the customer? Was Paulson the customer on one side of the deal, or was it the investor on the other side of the deal? And where is the good faith obligation that Goldman surely must have had?”